Let It Be

My students learn one or two English songs every month as part of my co-teachers' curriculum.  They're almost never normal kids songs.  They've learned Dancing Queen, You Raise Me Up, and even a few that I didn't know until they started singing them every day (who the heck are the A-Teens?).  This past month, they got to learn The Beatles' Yellow Submarine and Let It Be.

...

My Florida class was taught a prayer to say before snack and lunch every day to thank God, the farmers, their parents, and the teacher for their food.  I think it's super cute!  A couple of months into the year, I told them about the dinner prayer I had grown up saying each day.  They liked it, so they added it on to the end of their farmer prayer, so now they say their combo prayer before they eat every day at school.  It goes like this:

Thank you God, thank you farmer, thank you mom and daddy, thank you teacher; we have delicious [snack/lunch]! Now EAT! God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food. Amen. 

It's precious. One of the delights of working at a private kindergarten.

Last month, a handful of them started to shout "for the food" to the end of it, so they'd end, "Amen, FOR THE FOOD!"  

I got pretty tired of all the shouting REAL FAST, so I tried to explain...

"Guys, 'amen' means 'let it be so,' so you don't have to say anything after it! You already thanked God for the food, so just end with amen and you're done!"

"TEACHER! YOU SAID AMEN MEANS LET IT BE!"
"Aaaay-men, aaaay-men, aay-men, amen, whisper words of wisdom, Aaay-men!!!!!"